Document Type : Original Article

Author

• Alireza Seghatoleslami

Assistant professor of Society and Information Research Department in Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (IranDoc), Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Internet research ethics (IRE) is recognized a subfield of applied ethics, so that as an interdisciplinary field involve different scientific and technical fields. The aim of IRE, studying and applying ethical guidelines to realize research purposes, in particular with attention to research human subject. This research is realizing under a descriptive approach, a documentary research and based on a qualitative analysis. Early, there is defined ethical decision-making in internet research with referencing to technical, original and updated resources. Then, there are argued ethical decision-makings must be based on research situations in internet environments, so that there are adopted in case and based on a bottom-up approach. Two indicators of the internet facilities and the ethical issues are recognized fundamental components to study and analyze the moral challenges in internet research. These indicators could accept some flexibility to explore various ethical situations in Internet research to avoid providing universal ethical instructions (or codes) and only rely on advice or provide moral insights.Theseindicators forms table components of moral situations in internet research. This table helps researchers to ethical decision-making in varied situations to suit the context of the moral position to recognize and analyze its expression in the Internet environment.

Keywords

• Ethical decision-making
• Internet research ethics
• Moral situation
• Research human subject